Vatican cracks down on a traditionalist group by excommunicating its bishops

[dalton99a]

Last edited Thu Jul 2, 2026, 12:02 PM - Edit history (3)

https://apnews.com/article/vatican-traditionalist-pope-latin-st-pius-6570c6bcc0784f4b9229e20bdec4e5aa

Vatican cracks down on a traditionalist group by excommunicating its bishops
By NICOLE WINFIELD
Updated 7:21 AM CDT, July 2, 2026

VATICAN CITY (AP) — The Vatican responded aggressively Thursday to a traditionalist group that consecrated bishops without the pope’s consent, declaring the Society of St. Pius X had formally broken with the Catholic Church. It also excommunicated its bishops and priests, and warned its faithful that they too face the harshest sanctions in the church.

By declaring a schism and extending sanctions to potentially thousands of Catholics, the Vatican’s doctrine office went above and beyond the minimum sanctions foreseen by the church’s canon law to respond to the consecrations Wednesday of four new bishops.

The society, known by its acronym SSPX, celebrates the ancient Latin Mass and opposes the modernizing reforms of the Catholic Church, which it considers to be rife with heresies and errors. While a fringe movement on the Catholic right, the SSPX has been a thorn in the Vatican’s side for five decades because it claims to be even more Catholic than the Holy See.

The harshness of the response suggested that after trying to negotiate with the SSPX, the Vatican under Pope Leo XIV has had enough.

....


https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jul/02/vatican-excommunicates-all-members-of-ultra-conservative-rebels-sspx

Vatican excommunicates all members of ultra-conservative rebel group SSPX
Schism caused by Society of Saint Pius X ordaining four bishops without consent presents first crisis for Pope Leo
Angela Giuffrida in Rome
Thu 2 Jul 2026 10.05 EDT

...

Pope Leo had made a last-ditch effort to persuade the society to halt the ordinations, which took place during a ritual-filled ceremony on Wednesday, calling them a “schismatic act” and a “sin of extreme gravity”.

An estimated 16,500 people gathered in Ecône for the ceremony, including members of New Force, an Italian neofascist political party, and National Future, a new far-right force threatening the Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni’s chances of winning a second mandate in general elections next year.

Despite being a splinter group, the SSPX, which has nearly 1,500 priests, seminarians and other vocational members, has made strides in attracting a following of an estimated 150,000 to 200,000 people around the world, especially in the US, France and Argentina.

The society rejects ​central changes that emerged from the second Vatican council – a landmark gathering of cardinals, patriarchs, bishops, theological experts and others between 1962 and 1965 – including allowing mass to be celebrated in local languages. Until then it had been said only in Latin. It also rejects dialogue with other religions and does not recognise other Christian churches.

“It’s a very minor group but they are very loud and very ultra-right,” said [Andrea] Vreede.

....









Google Translate:

DICASTERY FOR THE DOCTRINE OF THE FAITH

Prot. No. 99/2009

DECREE

Notwithstanding the warnings addressed to the Superior General of the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Pius X, Bishop Alfonso de Galarreta, having performed an act of a schismatic nature through the episcopal consecration of four priests — without a pontifical mandate and against the will of the Supreme Pontiff — has incurred *ipso facto* the penalties provided for by Canon 1387 and Canon 1364 § 1 of the 2021 CIC.

I therefore declare, for all legal purposes, that both the aforementioned Bishop Alfonso de Galarreta and Pascal Schreiber, Michael Goldade, Michel Poinsinet de Sivry, and Marc Hanappier have incurred *ipso facto* the excommunication *latae sententiae* reserved to the Apostolic See.

I further declare that Bishop Bernard Fellay, having participated directly in the liturgical celebration as a co-consecrator — thereby publicly adhering to the schismatic act — has incurred the excommunication *latae sententiae* provided for by Canon 1364 § 1 of the 2021 CIC.

Clerics and lay faithful are warned not to adhere to the schism of the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Pius X, for they would incur *ipso facto* the penalty of excommunication *latae sententiae*.

From the Palace of the Dicastery, 2 July 2026

Víctor M. Card. Fernández
Prefect

John J. Kennedy
Titular Archbishop of Ossero
Secretary for the Disciplinary Section

Msgr. Armando Matteo
Secretary for the Doctrinal Section


Prot. No. 99/2009

EXPLANATORY NOTE

From the time of Saint Paul VI up to the most recent discussions held at this Dicastery, the many attempts to bring the adherents of the movement founded by Msgr. Marcel Lefebvre back into full communion with the Catholic Church have proven fruitless. This situation has been further aggravated by recent episcopal consecrations performed without a pontifical mandate, against the will of the Holy Father, and in open violation of canon law. Therefore, this Dicastery, in the faithful exercise of the functions entrusted to it, deems it necessary to point out that this act constituted the crime of schism, entailing canonical consequences for the sacred ministers and lay faithful involved. Indeed, as was already declared in 1988, “such disobedience — which implies a practical rejection of the Roman Primacy — constitutes a schismatic act” (cf. John Paul II, Apostolic Letter *Ecclesia Dei*, 3).

In this regard, henceforth:

1. Sacred ministers belonging to the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Pius X are in a state of schism and must therefore be considered schismatics (cf. *Ecclesia Dei*, 5 c; Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts, *Explanatory Note on the excommunication for schism incurred by adherents of the movement of Bishop Marcel Lefebvre*, 24 August 1996, 5–6), thereby incurring the excommunication provided for by law (Canon 1364 § 1 CIC).

2. Regarding the lay faithful, those who formally adhere to the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Pius X under the conditions established in the 1996 Explanatory Note of the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts (cf. *ibid.*, 7) — which remains in force and is adopted by this Dicastery — are to be considered schismatics and excommunicated.

3. Finally, the holy People of God are warned that the sacred ministers of the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Pius X administer the sacraments illicitly, and that the sacrament of penance administered by them and the marriage at which they officiate are invalid.

The Church, as a caring mother, will welcome with sincere affection and deep solicitude all those who desire to return to full communion. Apostolic Nuncios will establish procedures that Ordinaries may use in various cases.

Finally, all the faithful are urged to remain steadfast in communion with the Roman Pontiff, with the Bishops in communion with him, and with the whole Church (cf. *Lumen Gentium*, 22; can. 751 CIC), and to refrain from participating in celebrations and activities promoted by the aforementioned Priestly Fraternity of Saint Pius X.

From the Palace of the Dicastery, 2 July 2026

Víctor M. Card. Fernández
Prefect

Msgr. Armando Matteo
Secretary for the Doctrinal Section

John J. Kennedy
Titular Archbishop of Ossero
Secretary for the Disciplinary Section

[Chasstev365]

1. Take Down Opus Dei next!

[dalton99a]

2. +1

[rubbersole]

8. They're dangerous to the general population.

[Volaris]

11. Beat me to it. He does that, and ill be back in there the following sunday with a hundred bucks in my hand.

The Chicago Lion has apparently had enough of their retrograde doctrinal nonsense.

[hlthe2b]

3. Excommunicate Opus Dei SCOTUS and JD Vance next...

Last edited Thu Jul 2, 2026, 11:19 AM - Edit history (1)

[SheltieLover]

6. This! 👆👆👆👆👆

[Jilly_in_VA]

26. ABSOLUTELY!

Shady, in particular, is a "pretend" Catholic. I wish there were a term for them like "pretendian" is for someone pretending to be a Native American.

[Prairie Gates]

4. Dang. This Pope might get me back into a church

Bring back the 70s guitar hippies singing Lamb of God and it's a start.

The so-called traditionalist Catholics (who are oddly non-traditional on the death penalty, ahem) have been a disaster for the Church.

[harumph]

5. A teaching moment for the US left. If you have the power and you're negotiating with assholes, you're losing.

I have to say that prior Pope Francis made this possible, and now Leo has executed the plan. This Catholic traditionalists, though they would deny it, are made of the same cloth as the Christian Nationalists.

[sop]

7. Religious fundamentalists of all faiths are made of the same cloth.

Fundamentalist movements exist in Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, and Buddhism, their intolerance usually leads to violence.

[stopdiggin]

10. this. fanatics (of all breed and stripe) are dangerous

And I (personally) believe there is (or must be considered) a degree of mental illness ...
Somewhere in the mix.

[GiqueCee]

14. I have long believed...

... that conservatism by any metric, be it political or religious, belongs at the Dark End of the sociopathy spectrum. So yeah, I agree 100% that they have some short-circuited synapses somewhere.

[usonian]

9. Vance and the KKKatholic Kourt.

🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥
🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥

[GiqueCee]

12. Damn!

Writing all that in a "dead" language must be a challenge.

[Wednesdays]

15. I think it's in Italian, not Latin. nt

[GiqueCee]

16. I thought...

... Latin was the official language of the Vatican, but maybe not. I was never a Catholic, though I'm married to a recovering Catholic, but was never an Italian, either.

On edit: After a more careful reading, I suspect you may be right. But among the Romance languages, Italian is said to be the closest to its Latin roots.

[dalton99a]

17. Italian is the working and administrative language of the Vatican.

Many languages are spoken within the state, as its inhabitants come from many countries. Italian is the lingua franca of the Vatican and replaced Latin as the official language of the Synod of Bishops in 2014.[2] The Holy See, the entity with authority over the state (yet legally distinct), uses Latin as its official language and Italian as its main working language in administrative and diplomatic affairs. French is also sometimes used as a diplomatic language. In the Swiss Guard, Swiss German is the language used for giving commands, but the individual guards take their oath of loyalty in their own languages: German, French, Italian or Romansh.

Since the state was established, the native languages of the popes have been Italian, Polish, German, Spanish, and English.

The official website of the Holy See is primarily in Italian, with versions in English, French, German, Portuguese and Spanish, and partial versions in Arabic, Chinese and Latin.[5] Some content is also available in many other languages, such as Albanian, Belarusian, Croatian, Czech, Dutch, Hebrew, Hungarian, Indonesian, Japanese, Korean, Lithuanian, Maltese, Polish, Russian, Slovak, Slovene, Swahili and Ukrainian.[6][7]

The Holy See's newspaper L'Osservatore Romano is published in Italian, English, French, German, Polish, Portuguese and Spanish.[8] The Vatican News website is available in many languages: Albanian, Amharic, Arabic, Armenian, Belarusian, Bulgarian, Chinese, Croatian, Czech, English, Esperanto, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Latvian, Lithuanian, Hindi, Hungarian, Kannada, Malayalam, Macedonian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Slovak, Slovene, Spanish, Swahili, Swedish, Tamil, Tigrinya, Ukrainian, and Vietnamese.[9]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_Vatican_City

[GiqueCee]

19. AHA!

Well, that settles that. Thanks for the clarification.

[rampartd]

36. why a dead language is good for enduring concepts

humans can twist english to the point that "woke" is bad and "anti fascist" is un american.

[GiqueCee]

37. Good point!

[rampartd]

38. it is why so much law and medicine still use a dead language.

i like the latin mass, learned a little latin in catholic school, but put me on the "liberation theology" side of the universal religion, a little left of leo.

"44 All the believers were together and had everything in common. 45 They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. " acts chapter 2

[hunter]

39. Dead languages evolve too.

Later interpretations of them can change and do.

Fundamentalists would rather live in the blurry places between the original writing and modern scholarly interpretations which may be more accurate.

We can't go back in time and ask dead authors exactly what meaning their words had to them.

[liberalla]

13. Go Leo! Crack that whip!

Love to read this!

[31j20b3]

18. A good reminder that authoritarians use authority to preserve the system that preserves them

And I'm not saying anything bad about the Pontiff.

He's operating well inside the rules of the institution which were created to preserve the institution's authority and traditions of control.

[harumph]

20. Non-authoritarians occasionally have to resort to hard leveraging of rules and options

to protect institutions from actual authoritarians. I submit whether one is considered an actual authoritarian requires the assessment of behavior over time instead of singular instances. There is attack and self defense. Both may involve loss of life, but they do not represent the same intent. If institutions are to function at all, they require rules and sufficient consensus to follow the rules. The traditionalists are schismatic at the very least by denying Vatican II, although they will deny it. Being schismatic, they have removed themselves from the Church. In essence, they did the heavy lifting all by themselves and Pope Leo merely went on record acknowledging that fact.

[31j20b3]

21. Yes, especially in a case like this wherein a handful out of thousands of priests

is treated as an existential threat to catholic power.

It seems rath more like protection of the control of power

Imagine the pushback if ending indulgences were involved. Oh, wait. That happened. The catholic church survived a process that birthed a huge competing chuch all that was lost was sole authority to proclaim sole source authority

And don't forget there was also the Inquisition. They had to lock-up Galileo because, they needed to enforce a well outdated Earth centrism

One guy and his telescope against the Catholic church. The Church lost that and yet survived, brecause survuval of the Church didn't depend on knowledge of celestial mechanics and even built it's own observatory in Rome.

[harumph]

22. Oh, I see where you're coming from.

"...wherein a handful out of thousands of priests is treated as an existential threat to catholic power. "

Mere "handfuls" of people can be a problem.

A "handful" of Supreme Court justices can be an existential threat to democracy.

I'm more of the mind to excommunicate termites (pun intended) when I find them, instead of waiting for my house to be eaten. But that's just me.

Cry-babies can now set up their own church in a backyard shed for all I care.

[31j20b3]

23. I suppose it's also a question of shoe-size

If the dissidents have big enough feet, then the few can kick the ass of the many

Gotta admit SCOTUS has big feet and has been kicking ass.

[harumph]

24. Agreed. That's often the case.

A few with a decent strategy can do a lot of damage. But then when the "many" catch on - and come to power, there might be hell to pay.

[31j20b3]

25. Yep, and our troubling problem is the few caught on a very long time ago

[blm]

30. You don't understand that this fascist group is the one

that has been gaining extraordinary political power over the last 5 decades, and are even wielding their extremist influence on the Supreme Court.

[31j20b3]

31. Could use a proper name for "this fascist group" just so I can be sure

who that group is?

I'm not disagreeing, I'm just old and I have to be careful.

[blm]

33. TFP. Tradition-Family-Property. They are like the commoner base for Opus Dei elites.

I have been exposed to their teachings and their extraordinary growth and political influence in the US since the 70s.

[31j20b3]

34. Thanks. I didn't know about TFP, but I'm aware of pfople pushing that

perspective

[bucolic_frolic]

27. Exciting times

Not a small splinter group. Biggest excommunication since The Reformation??

[blm]

28. Good.

It’s always been a front for full-on fascism. These people are insane, but, they are also methodical, persistent, and unwavering.

My mother followed TFP faithfully from the mid70s to her death in 2000.

[muriel_volestrangler]

29. Not just the bishops - anyone who "habitually participates" in the society and "formally shares its positions"

"Regarding the lay faithful, those who formally adhere to the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Pius X under the conditions established in the 1996 Explanatory Note of the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts (cf. *ibid.*, 7) — which remains in force and is adopted by this Dicastery — are to be considered schismatics and excommunicated."

The Vatican has excommunicated followers of a conservative Catholic splinter sect, the Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX), a day after it consecrated four new bishops in Geneva against Pope Leo XIV's direct instruction.

In a decree, it said the Society's total of six bishops were excommunicated - and, in a highly unusual move, it added that any lay members who "formally adhere" to the group "are to be considered schismatic and excommunicated".

But those who left the SSPX would be welcomed back "with sincere affection".

The Vatican later clarified that not all members would be excommunicated automatically, but those who "habitually participate" in SSPX celebrations and "formally share its doctrinal positions" would be.
...
The Vatican said on Thursday: "The sacred ministers of the Society of St Pius X administer the sacraments illicitly, while the sacrament of penance they administer and the marriages they witness are invalid."

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c5yz95188jjo

Leo is not messing around; the far-right Pius X nutters are told "you're not Catholic - repent".

[sir pball]

32. This isn't even the first time SSPX has pulled these shenanigans...

They consecrated some bishops in 1988; John Paul excommunicated the bishops directly involved (the consecrators and consecratees) but didn't punish the group at large; in the early 2000s Benedict lifted the punishment after they said they were sorry and wouldn't do it again…so it makes sense Leo's going nuclear and just giving them all the boot.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89c%C3%B4ne_consecrations

[blm]

35. Exactly. I was horrified when Benedict removed restrictions on them.

So glad you clarified that timeline for those here who are unaware of its importance.